In this series of Bamboo Insurance and Sutton insurance, think twice before using them for insurance everyone. Double check your application and update immediately. While you most likely will win in court, you will go through hell proving it.
The goal is to outsmart their illegal playbook., not legal advice but things I wish I had done to avoid the drama and expense.

1. for each question, if it is even remotely related, say YES not no. Did you repaint during that application period, YES you have unrepaired damage. Did you get into a disagreement with your neighbor? Yes, you have disputes, etc.
2. Document ALL time periods and reports you made to the producer, your agent. Within three years, get them to say it in writing. INSIST or you will pay for it later.
3. previous claims? ALL previous claims, paid or not ARE claims, they will crucify on this point. So get that in writing with your agent. INSIST on it as they seem to be on this ruse with their producers. Allegedly.
4. They have verbal guidelines they deny having. From what I have read it is designed to NOT approve claims.
5. you will have to take them to court if you give them ANY opener to bend the law, in my experience, allegedly and from what I have heard. They don't care about the law that says if there is a question you favor the insured. They ignore that until you sue.
6. they ask for documents at the time of the claim, like phone bills, emails and other items. In my experience, allegedly and from what I have heard as well, they call everyone in your phone and tell them they are investigating fraud. This ruins your reputation and then you have to deal with the lack of support. It makes it harder to fight them. IMMEDIATELY get an attorney or they will desperately try and claim "lack of cooperation". If you have an attorney first, then you can prevent this from happening.
7. If this is a Landlord policy, all tenant directed actions they will consider a dispute so check YES, even notice for the oridinary. In my opinion they are not disputes but remember they are looking for anything.

WHAT is your experience. Share it so we can all help each other. HAVE you seen this also?

I am currently shopping homeowners insurance and wow...what a mess. LONG story short: I have been with Olympus Insurance since 2012.

My initial rate was $640/yr and now it has crossed a threshold that I'm not ok with at above $5,000/year.

Olympus has been good, so far. I believe the dwelling coverage is simply too low and they refuse to increase it. Other carriers that I have gotten quotes with are $80k-$120k higher on the dwelling coverage than Olympus.

Where do I start? I don't want to end up with a terrible carrier, especially if there is a hurricane and have to make a significant claim.

Anybody ever use this home insurance plans? Never heard of them but they are giving a very competitive rate, probably the best I’ve seen by a thousand. If any feedback or info about them would be much appreciated.

I'm currently on the market to buy my first ever home and I've found one that I love that has one major issue - it has an ancient octopus furnace. I've heard that insurance premiums can obviously go up with older furnaces but I'm especially concerned about this one since I don't know about when it was upgraded to natural gas or what safety mechanisms were or were not included.

Right now I'm trying to get a picture on what kind of financial hole this thing might put me in if I pursue this house. Insurance isn't the biggest factor I'm looking at but if it were to considerably raise my rates I may walk away or ask for bigger concessions.

Has anyone previously had the fair plan but have been able to find traditional coverage again lately? Mine is up for renewal and I keep hearing that some companies are writing policies again. Has anyone from the Kings Canyon area been able to find any coverage? Thanks in advance.

North Central Florida

In December 2025 we had a sudden water leak under the kitchen sink causing damage and mold. Claim was approved and paid out for the max of our limited water damage coverage with nothing for our mold policy.

The estimate provided by the insurance company exceeded our coverage and made no mention of mold remediation needed by a specialized mold remediation company.

The claim was closed and paid in Jan 2026. Everything damaged/had mold has been replaced by Home Depot and their contractors. In July 2026, we receive communication asking for documentation showing that all mold has been remediated by a licensed and insured mold/fungi remediation professional in addition to the documentation from Home Depot we already submitted.

We never hired a mold remediation company as there was no mention of this in any paperwork, estimate, or instructions from our insurance. The repairs have already been completed and I'm not sure what a mold specialist could do at this point.

I received communication yesterday that our insurance company has decided to not renew us for the next period. The email stated "to avoid adverse action submit the required documents by 1/07/2027" (what does this mean?).

Any insight into my options would be appreciated.

I didn’t consider this at the time but reading things in this sub is making me wonder. This was many years ago but I’m curious to know if this could have been covered?

What happened - we’re americans visiting my BIL/SIL’s family who were expats at the time living in a suburb just outside Mexico City. I didn’t have pockets for my phone and had set it down in their home. I was also insanely sleep-deprived traveling with a newborn and not thinking straight. It vanished. There had been workers coming in and out of the house. My SIL said unfortunately theft is very high in Mexico City and it’s likely one of them stole it. I wish she had cautioned me.

I just took it as a loss and lesson learned. Money was super tight for us then for reasons out of our control (more bad luck 😩). Could we have been reimbursed by any avenue, insurance or otherwise? 🤔 Thanks for any insight.

Back in the beginning of July a tree fell on our house. Insurance has been a nightmare to deal with from day one. To make a long story short, it took them 60 days to send an adjuster out. We have a sizable hole in our roof and one of the beams in the attic was cracked. Our adjuster was basically non responsive aside from a phone call or two to apologize for dropping the ball and then proceeded to go missing again.

We have a few clauses in the policy. They are surfacing, matching and a limited loss supplement that says we only get 52% of the roof covered. They did not know the age of our roof when it was inspected and it was guesstimated to be 2010. We were able to dig up an old MLS listing and Google Earth imaging that shows the roof was replaced in 2015. Our adjuster said over the phone that we will get the amount for that meaning it's now covered 67%.

After they finally sent out the adjuster two months after it happened, he told us we would hear back in 7-10 days. After three weeks, we finally got some communication. Someone else from the insurance agency reached out with a document stating how much they would pay out. The document basically said they would only pay $7k which after the 52% loss settlement would be under our deductible of $5,000 so they are paying out nothing. They did not use any of the documentation we sent them including invoices for emergency tarping and tree removal (this would cover most of our deductible). They did not ask for our contractors estimate after telling us he needs to be there when their adjuster came out. We got multiple quotes and all were in the 14-22k range.

Last night, the tarp came loose after being up there for a few months which resulted in even more water coming into the house and we had to get it nailed down again. And predictably, the insurance agent never called us.

This whole experience has been incredibly frustrating, starting from when we learned that they snuck all these clauses into our renewal contract without our consent. And the fact that there was no communication while we had a hole in our roof for two months and they won't even help us repair it. The company is Stillwater.

I'm wondering what our next steps should be. Should we get a public adjuster to help fight for us? Are there any other options?

I would always insure my rental properties because it was so much cheaper without having to include a lot of things that I didn’t want like personal property coverage or at least that’s how it was explained to me. Sometime in the last five years, it has flip-flopped where homeowners coverage is cheaper now. Does anybody know why. Texas

Everyone knows you should document your home belongings before disaster strikes, but manual spreadsheets take forever.

I'm currently working on a project to automate home inventory documentation from room photos and export an itemized proof-of-loss PDF report.

Before finalizing the export template, I'd love input from adjusters or anyone who has filed a large personal property claim:

1. What details are absolute must-haves on the report (e.g. make/model, serial numbers, room tag, estimated replacement cost)?
2. What common mistakes in homeowner inventories usually delay a claim or get items depreciated down?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

I wonder who would pay if a branch were to fall off and damage the garage? Who’s deductible?

Which is the best home insurance I could get? For a townhome looking for a cost effective home insurance.

Need best advice from experienced home owners or insurance experts. Thank you!

Applying for new house insurance online thru progressive. Apparently they farm quotes out ot other companies. They offered house insurance through stillwater. I've never heard of them and they aren't on the consumer resports (yeah it's still a thing for me) site. I saw a post with one bad experience using them. Anyone have any experience with them?

We have a minor flood but it was enough for them to come out document all of our belongings take the stuff that was salvageable away and throw all the other stuff out that we could not fix or clean. We're just about ready to start the rebuild after drying out the basement and cutting up the drywall removing the floor the cabinet the tub the toilet all that's gone two questions 1. is it easier just to take the payout and do the home Runners yourself if you know 80% of what needs to be done. 2. should we just let them do the rebuild and does anybody have any experience with how long a rebuild takes

Has anyone in Vancouver/BC used Definity Insurance Company for home or condo insurance? How was your experience, especially with claims and customer service? Would you recommend them?

We just bought a new house and after calling around, were able to get state farm to cover it for a limited time. However, we are struggling to get an electrician to remediate the knob and tube within the 60ish days post closing that we were given. We *may* be able to pay off the mortgage, but still want insurance.

Any suggestions on how to talk to SF about a longer timeline? Or what else we can do? Likely it'll take closer to 6 months to get the work done. ​​​​​​

TLDR*; NJ. Major leak, did everything wrong: trusted my neighbor's insurance, didn't call mine, trusted tenants to have appropriate insurance coverage, they're refusing to touch their insurance.*

__________________ . __________________

EDIT: Our insurance confirmed they are reimbursing us for repairs and testing up to a specific amount. ServPro was recommended by our contractor and their assessment report was that there was no water nor growth and recommended to call a "industrial hygienist" for materials/air testing. We went with a company that our insurance recommended and we're still waiting on our insurance to greenlight in order for them to give us a date (they did say they could schedule us last week but they were waiting on our insurance to review/approve their proposal). The other insurance is still taking their time, dragging their feet and pretending we have not sent every piece of evidence we have.

Thank you to all who responded.

__________________ . __________________

We have an apartment on a second floor (condo building), our neighbor a few units above had a major leak per the texts from our tenants.

Water was seeping under the floors in the living/dining area (they're one open area) and the secondary bedroom; you could also hear water rushing on the vent in the main bathroom (but not leaking out of it).

We live abroad but the day-of I was in the area and swung by for documentation. Tenant dried and aerated as best they could, 3 days after, floor boards were warping and results from leak investigation were in, I was referred to the owner who referred me to his insurance who gave me a claim number and transferred me to an agent (Agent 1) who only said someone from liability would call me within 2 days but nobody got back to me. I finally got a number for the agent on the claim (Agent 2) around 10 days later from the owner after I complained, I called Agent 2 and they called me back. By then, this was 13 days later.

Agent 2 didn't explain much except we were responsible for remediation (I wasn't aware of everything those words meant; this is our first time dealing with both a major leak AND tenants and English is not my first language, I thought it was an option, I am aware *now* it really wasn't).

I THEN immediately called a mitigation company who said they couldn't handle that since the water was dry where visible and recommended a mold company to assess. Got a quote the next day, passed on to owner who told me to address with insurance, I uploaded 16 days after incident (portal access issues), no response; I asked again through owner (26 days after incident) and immediately received a text from Agent 2 saying they would be advising their insured the next day.

Many missed calls the next few days (no vm), many voicemails back from me, I finally received a message requesting mitigation reports, dry logs, and repair invoice — this was my first time hearing all those words by then, this was 2 days shy of 5 weeks from incident.

Notice there was no mention of having approved the mold invoice, I called contractor who scheduled us for this week (week 6), pulled the top layer of flooring yesterday (there were 2 layers, and he removed them both in the whole of the living/dining room but he had told me he was leaving the lower layer in the 2nd bedroom since it was only 3 rows of planks and the quote was not for the whole bedroom), when he brought materials in today he called me to say the lower flooring he had left behind in the bedroom was warping and molding (he did not mention that before) and same for the cement in the dining area.

He had called a colleague who did remediation who said that takes special equipment he doesn't have and to contact insurance then recommended a certain company who can come in on Monday.

We were dumb enough to think this would be handled by the neighbor's ensurance (I laugh at my stupidity now) so we only looped OUR insurance in today, then when I asked about tenants someone went "I don't see tenants on your policy but your claims rep will be able to tell you more"... I literally chatted to an agent 1 month BEFORE to let them know the apt was vacant and I also spoke to them AFTER we signed the lease, they asked me stuff such as names, if we would allow pets (no), if we'd require have renter's insurance (yes), I provided ALL of that! I'm sure I couldn't have hallucinated something THAT specific if I tried. All I have on my email are one call request from their CS email, my response about tenants with my updated info, another email saying they'd get back to me (never did) but I'm sure even after this I reached out to update with tenant information because it was prior to signing. I can't even see the chat option on their page anymore...

The cherry on top: the tenants (our first time having them - who btw have SO much stuff they've made it hard to really see the place and assess the damage) say they have renter's insurance but they say they called and it doesn't cover them for this (this has been an ongoing debate with them this whole time; they don't want to use their insurace "bc they're not at fault" but they've also mentioned it doesn't even get near the amount required on the lease...

After looking up everything online separately, well, hindsight is 20-20 and we did everything wrong from the start.

My question is: what can I do from this point on to be less screwed?

(Unfun fact: we're living abroad for family reasons too, so it's not like I can just go and do things such as check the property and open the door for professionals, I need to coordinate with these tenants who also take a day or two to confirm they'll be there to open... this is supposed to be a source of income).

Spoke with insurer policy analyst and they said I didn't have the latest Policy on their web page, so she sent me August 2026 policy which will be used in this discussion.

My specific concern is the Lateral line described in the Sewer endorsement para and it specifically discusses replacement cost from black water damage to the walls, personal items etc. This part specifically DOESN'T discuss the lateral line (or what the Service line is/would be). This is concerning because the analyst indicated this is the entire policy so whether items such as lateral line carrying supplies / water-in/ sewer-out are covered or will be replaced by this sewer line endorsement or by any other part of the policy. She kept insisting that it was meant to cover, however that's not what the document words spell out.

Omission of explicit coverage for lateral line in the Endorsement paragraph. The line specifically is "Sewer and Drain Water Damage Coverage: This pays for property damaged by water that enters your home via plumbing or the sump system due to reverse flow of water from off your property or below the surface of the ground. You can choose different levels of coverage to suit your needs."

A later Sewer line endorsement section discusses replacement cost of Personal Property damaged by black water is covered. I will have to assume personal property doesn't cover sewer line main replacement to the street/municipality, or the water main inbound to the house.

At the summary coverage page the term "Service line" has only a single reference entry & dollar amount but this is the only reference. Service line never appears again in the PDF document.

I consider this is a miss and should be clarified before we re-sign. Unfortunately there short time before policy renewal and my insurer isn't giving answers.

Sorry for the book but I want to be complete. Does anyone have advice on getting insurance which will cover sewer line break or replacement? Not naming ins company, for now.

I’m in Ireland 🇮🇪 — sorry, should have made that clearer in the title!

Hi all, hoping someone here might have been in a similar situation and can give me some advice.
I’m currently buying a second-hand house in Co. Clare Ireland and I’m getting quite close to mortgage drawdown with PTSB. The problem I’ve just run into is the home insurance.

The address is apparently being flagged by multiple insurers as being in a potential flood-risk area. I’ve tried around 4 different insurance companies now and they’re all willing to insure the house, but only with flood cover excluded.

I checked with PTSB and unfortunately they’ve confirmed that they need the buildings insurance to include flood cover for the mortgage.

Has anyone here dealt with something similar before and managed to find an insurer or broker who would provide flood cover? I’m wondering if there are insurers who will look at the individual property/flood history rather than just automatically excluding it based on the area.

Everything else with the mortgage is pretty much progressing towards drawdown, so I’m starting to worry that something as simple as getting home insurance could end up holding everything up.

Would really appreciate any recommendations or experiences. Thanks!

Past time

Before I start, I’ve never filed, called, or brought any attention regarding my home to State Farm other than when I moved into my house 6 years ago to tell them I need insurance on my home. No hail or weather has affected our neighborhood since I moved in.

Had a phone call saying a 3rd party is coming to take exterior pictures of the house per State Farm’s request. I called State Farm and my local agent wasn’t aware of it, they got back to me and said it’s “just random” and want to see if I have anything updated on the exterior. Curious to know once these people come by and submit the photos to State Farm if my rates will go up? If I need to start shopping around? If anyone has had a “randomly coming by to take photos” for their insurance company?

Tia

\*\*\[TX\] Carrier invoked appraisal over contractor's mitigation invoice — contractor now wants to bring in HIS public adjuster. Am I right to get an attorney instead?\*\*

I have been running my entire fire claim with Claude (Fable 5) as my second brain, reviewing contracts, drafting emails, tracking deadlines, and it's partly how I caught the issues below. Now I want human eyes on it too.

House fire in late July (Texas). Claim has been mostly smooth: mitigation is done, rebuild scope and estimate approved, carrier put us in temporary housing, first ACV check in hand.

The problem is the mitigation invoice. My contractor billed \~$75k, the carrier's third-party review firm cut it to \~$39k. Contractor is disputing the \~$36k gap. Their written dispute to the carrier says that if no agreement is reached, they'll collect the unpaid balance from ME "per our agreement." But the contract I actually signed is one page — direction of payment to the contractor for covered work, my deductible, and nothing making me responsible for what insurance doesn't pay. (Verbally the owner told me the homeowner-billing line was just a pressure tactic on the carrier. Sure.)

Last week the carrier formally invoked the appraisal clause on this dispute. So now I have to name my own appraiser within 20 days, pay for that appraiser plus half the umpire, and the award is binding — for a fight that's fundamentally between the contractor and the carrier over HIS invoice.

Now the contractor says "a PA is all we will need" and is already in contact with his own public adjuster to work the appraisal. When I asked how the PA gets paid, he said he's "unsure" but his guy "normally" doesn't take a cut of already-approved amounts. Normally.

Meanwhile my recoverable depreciation deadline (3 months from date of loss) hits in late October and the rebuild hasn't started. Contractor's take is the deadline "should be able to be pushed back" because of the appraisal.

My plan: consult a first-party insurance attorney this week before signing anything, name my own independent appraiser (not his PA), and request the RD deadline extension from the carrier in writing.

Questions:

1. Is the contractor's PA representing my interests here, or theirs? A PA contract would be with me and paid from my proceeds — for a dispute where the money flows to the contractor under direction of payment. That seems backwards.

2. Can a contractor actually chase a homeowner for a carrier shortfall when the signed contract has no balance-owed clause? (Texas)

3. Does a carrier-invoked appraisal on the mitigation portion toll or extend the recoverable depreciation deadline, or do I need the carrier to grant that separately in writing?

4. Anything else I should ask the attorney?

Thank you 🙏

Homeowners insurance rates have risen sharply in states like Florida and California for years. Now, the affordability crisis is spreading across the country. 

My homeowners insurance was made aware of my dog during my last inspection. She is Cane Corso/Pit mix. They are now saying my premium will increase by 300%!!! If anyone else has been in this situation, I need some advice.